July 05, 2006

Coke "Bottle FIlms" Are Not Viral

As a part of Coke's new ad campaign theme, "Happiness In a Bottle," Advertising Age reports the following:"Coke and its agencies have teamed up with small production companies to
create 15-second viral videos called "Bottle Films" to express love for
the liquid, the experience and the brand."

That sounds cool, right? Well let's check out one of the "viral" videos:

Hold the phone... that's not a viral video, it's a commercial! And so are theseother "Bottle Films." Let's just say Ad Age and Coke are using the term "viral" very loosely. So far, I've seen nothing "viral" about these "Bottle Films", other than the fact that you can't find them anywhere. Which means Coke and its agencies are doing a rotten job of promoting these as "viral" videos.

Ok, so here are some pointers for Coke and their agencies:

Launch a website at Bottlefilms.com that contains all these videos. Come on, this is a no-brainer.

Buy Google search ads for searches like bottle films, coke, coca-cola, etc... and drive them to the URL mentioned above. (Remember, "viral" is about visitor pass along AFTER they've experienced your content. Advertising and viral do not need to be mutually exclusive.)

Make videos, not commercials. The success of these "Bottle Films" will be very limited because they're commercials, and therefore, are not that interesting. If they were commercials but included something raunchy, funny or unbelievable, they'd have a chance. But these do not.

Making some "cool" videos and telling 3 people about them is not a recipe for "viral" success. And halfway interesting commercials certainly are not. If you want to see what's successfully spread "virally" in terms of video, go to YouTube and check out the most viewed videos.

There's one commercial in the top 20 today. Watching it should give you an idea about what makes a viral video really take off.